Tag Archives: Trese

Trese: A review

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Well, what can I say? I was full of trepidation about Trese being brought to life as an animated series but good that I was wrong about my fears. It was better than I expected. The animation could be better (since I am more of a Japanese animation fan) but the storylines per episode are good representations of what Philippine myths and folklore would look like in modern Manila setting. The nuno sa punso though would be hard in Manila since we don’t have enough soil here as everything else is concrete. But the writer of the comics (Budjette Tan) and the Netflix series were able to transport the nuno into sewers and popping up from manholes, which made sense. I didn’t like how this season ended, kinda cliche but the preview of the next season is more intriguing because it seems like the manananggal here is cunning.

I like that the scenes are so familiar, like the MRT breaking down in the middle of Guadalupe, the Meralco building, Dela Rosa Avenue in Makati, Ortigas Center buildings, Megamall, Manila Bay nightscape and I could make out the buildings along Roxas Boulevard, and ABS-CBN front entrance.

My girls and I watched the entire Season 1 in English and it was…so-so. The cadence of the English language was clumsy. Maybe because the scriptwriters are Filipinos in the Philippines, so the conversations in English don’t flow naturally I guess? The accents were off, especially with the spells, which will not bother non-Tagalog speakers but it was grating to me. The English cast was comprised of Filipino-Americans or Filipino-Canadians and it is understandable that they may have trouble with the original language. However, I find it disturbing that Lou Diamond Philips (Mayor) sounded more Mexican while Carlos Alazraqui sounded like a cross between a South American or Spaniard.

When I rewatched snippets of Episode 1 again in Filipino, then it made more sense now. Liza Soberano was better than Shay Mitchell, even just in the monotone. Mind you, Liza grew up in the US (and she gets a lot of flak here for sounding more American than Filipino in movies and TV series) so both actors have that American twang but Liza’s monotone was similar to that of the Japanese voice actor of Kusanagi Motoko in Ghost in the Shell, which fit Alexandra Trese better. UPDATE: I will watch the entire Episode 1 to judge it better.

In the Filipino version, conversations in Tagalog were not the everyday Tagalog we use but it somehow fits. As others commented, this is not the Filipino dub/sub of Naruto, which was cringey.

I like the Ifugao chanting that they use as opening music, which gives it a more ancient, folklore Filipino flavor. The music of Up Dharma Down (UDD) at the end of the every episode is a good foil to the ancient music as UDD is the best representation of modern Filipino music today (yes, I’m a fan).

Filipino folklore is rich but was bastardized by the Spanish, who have demonized women–just look at what they did to the babaylan (Philippine shamans, usually female). The origins of the tiyanak in the colonial Spanish context is one example of that. The banishment of Mariang Sinukuan and Maria Makiling (some versions of the tale) is another one. Neil Gaiman is also a fan of Philippine folklore, which is a treasure trove of literary material. Even the local ones we have like the legend of the Seven Lakes of San Pablo, and the Mt Maculot (originally Mt. Maculog) in Batangas can be manipulated in so many ways, which I did in that novel that I wrote but burned.

Anyway, this is just the first attempt of the Trese team, I hope they get better support and better story telling next season.

Trese

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There’s so much hype surrounding Trese, an animated adaptation of the Filipino graphic novel of the same name that will be shown on Netflix. I haven’t had the opportunity to read the series but I will find time to watch the animated series.

From what I gather, this is about a Filipina, Alexandra Trese (trese is thirteen is Spanish, believed to be a number of bad luck) who is some kind of detective who deals with the underworld/supernatutal. It gave me the Witch Hunter Robin vibes but Trese looks like she is more kickass than Robin.

Photo from Goodreads

Based from reviews of the graphic novel series, readers are introduced to Philippine mythology, the stuff that terrorized us kids at night like:

1. tiyanak – a blood-thirsty baby monster that started out as an aborted fetus, or so what the elders told us;

2. mananaggal – a monster that takes human form by day and splits in half during full moons; the upper body splits from the lower body and develops bat wings to fly and feed;

3. kapre – a giant that resembles a man that hangs out in huge trees and smokes a lot. When you see a tree at night billowing smoke, most likely that’s a kapre on that tree. I’m not really sure what this creature does but maybe it has something to do with bringing you with him to the underworld

4. wakwak – a vampiric bird, similar to manananggal. We don’t call that kind of monster wakwak here in Luzon, most likely it’s referred to as manananggal especially if you’re in an urban or semi-urban area.

5. tiktik – it’s a small creature probably like a troll or something that makes the “tik tik tik” sound on rooftops, especially when there’s a pregnant woman in the house. The creature bores a hole through the roof with its razor-sharp tongue to reach the pregnant woman’s tummy to feed on the fetus inside.

5. tikbalang – a half-man, half-horse creature that is said to make people get lost in the woods, never to be found again. The old people said that when you’re in the woods/mountain and you get lost, it’s most likely you’re being toyed by a tikbalang. I don’t know if they feed on humans but I think they’re some kind of foot soldiers of the underworld. When we were kids, we were told that if we get played by the tikbalang, we should turn our shirts inside out so we can reverse the spell cast on us by the creature so we could find our way home.

6. duwende – dwarf or similar to leprechaun I think; they said they live inside earth mounds and sometimes they live outside old homes; they can put curses on you. We’ve had stories in our family about being played upon or cursed by duwendes because they got offended for some reason.

7. aswang – a shape-shifting monster. This is one I feared the most when I was a kid. This creature can be anything. Like a vampire, it feeds on humans but not just blood, it devours humans like how big cats shred their preys. Unlike the other creatures above, the aswangs aren’t brainless zombies that you can easily outwit. They’re diabolical or basically demons in human form, if they want to manifest in that form. Sometimes they can be huge black dogs that chase motorists at night and grab people from their vehicles. Sometimes they make a doppelgänger of your friend or family to trick you and mislead as you have become a prey. Sometimes they said some witches are aswangs and they steal bodies of the dead during a funeral to feed on. When they steal a body, they replace the body in the coffin with a banana tree trunk. This is one of the reasons why people in the rural areas hold 24-hr vigils during funerals so that the aswang will not steal the body. They also said that aswangs, if they live among humans in a village, do not socialize and they do not come out during daytime. They do not have philtrum, or the indentation above the lip.

I did a research on these mythical creatures more than a decade ago as I was writing a novel based on Philippine mythology. I almost didn’t finish my thesis for my MA because I was so preoccupied writing this novel. One of the major antagonists, if not the main antagonist, was Maria Makiling, a diwata (a nature spirit, like a minor goddess or a fairy, based on the Sanskrit word devata = god), who is said to inhabit the mountain of the same name in my hometown. This diwata was said to be antagonistic towards foreigners to the area (i.e. non-residents) and make them go around in circles in her mountain, similar to what tikbalangs do, to be forever lost. One version of the legends we have of her was that when she was in her human form, she was raped by a foreigner whom she snubbed because she already had heart set on a native suitor. She has since become vindictive. Hence, the volcanic nature of the mountain.

I won’t go into details of what I wrote as I burned all copies of it. It was causing me literal nightmares. Like nightmares of aswangs circling overhead inside the church next to my childhood home. Regular nightmares. My novel involved occult rituals and I don’t know how they came about or how I conjured them up in my head. But considering how the paternal side of my family was into occult, like the really bad one, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had it buried in my brain all along.

I want to watch Trese but I’m afraid of summoning again the nightmares. Even if it’s just an anime.